LORD ROSEBERY,

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3391, 5 December 1911, Page 7

LORD ROSEBERY,

—— AN AMUSING SPEECH ON PUBLIC LIBRARIES. “CEMETERIES OF DEAD BOOKS.’ Lord Rosebery, with a golden kej which, was presented to him, formally opened the new building of tho Alitchell Library in Glasgow. Founded in 1874 by the late Mr Stephen Alitchell, whe bequeathed £67,000 to tlie Glasgow Corporation fur the purpose, the- library has outgrown a number of buildings. Subsequently Lord Rosebery addressed an audience of 5000 in. St-.’Andrew’s Hath which adjoins the new library building. A wise man, he said, when ho had reached 1 the ago of sixty, never opened a , library and never distributed prizes at school, because, in. fact, the whole subject w;:> exhausted Air Carnegie the other day told him —if lie did not mistake the figures—* that ho had founded 2200‘ libraries. That was an enormous work of beneficence, but he (Lord Rosebery) was not troubled with the beneficence at this moment; he was troubled with another aspect of the question. 220,000 PLATITUDES -

Everyone of these 2200 libraries bad been coned with oratory. They might take it that at any one. of them ten speakers had uttered their thoughts. That was 22,000 speeches. Everyone c-f these speeches, he calculated., on an f average contained ten platitudes on the subject of public libraries. (Laughter.) Thus 220,000 platitudes had been uttered in connection, with the foundation of the Carnegie libraries alone. How, then, was an inexperienced orator —(laughter)—at this hour in thy evening and decline of life to try to utter anything that was worth hearing? He felt rather disposed met entirely to bless them, blit by no means to utter an unqualified benediction on libraries. On entering this enormous

collection of volumes—lßo,ooo of them —in the Alitchell Library lie believed that he was filled with a hideous depression,. He knew he ought to feel elated. He might, but he did not. He felt an intense depression in seeing this enormous mass of books, this cemetery of books, because after ail most of them were dead. How many living books were there in the Alitchell Library? How many many inevitable bonks, time-proof books, weather-proof books ? WRECKED HOPES AND LIVES.

That was not the only depressing aspect from which he saw those libraries. He thought of all the thoughts and of the aspirations of the authors who wrote them. Think of the long procession of baffled hopes, of literary aspirations, marching onwards to the inevitable grave! Just think what a great mass of disappointment, of wrecked liopeg and lives, was represented by a public library! Who was to overtake the reading of those books? If they were to devote the whole of their life, tlie youngest of them, in trying to get through half of the Mitchell Library, would be baffled long before life was over, and they would find themselves drowned in the stream of new books which they would find it necessary to read.

He confessed he felt it a depressing thought to enter one of these huge storehouses of knowledge, and to feel how hopeless it was in any degree or in am- way to overtake the opportunities that they afforded. Even tlie late Lord Acton could have produced no effect by his reading on til'.e stores cf the Alitchell Library, and to those who, ’ike himself, were of a melancholy and jaundiced frame of mind—(laughter)— an enormous collection like the Alitchell Library had a stupefying and paralysing rather than an encouraging effect. AIR CARNEGIE’S SUPPLY.

While the demand existed Air Carnegie’s supply Avars always equal tn the demand, and if, as they Avere told, the great Empire of China was .awakening from its long sleep to an intellectual activity by 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 of inhabitants, he had no doubt Air Carnegie Avould only see in it a ucav opportunity for providing libraries. (Laughter.) Such muificence as that of encircling, they might say, the entire globe. Avith a girdle of free libraries, which AA’cre highly a predated hoav and Avliieh he ventured to say Avould to come, ay as a masterpiece of philanthropy . be appreciater tenfold by generations Replying to the toast of his health at a ci\'ie luncheon in the City Chambers, Lord Rosebery expressed the hope that the city of Glasgow Avould alloiv him, in gratitude for the long series of faA'ours ho had receded at their hands, and for the affectionate friendship which he had always experienced there, to offer a mace to tho municipality(Cheers.)