We are very glad to be able to announce that, after the Easter holidays,
a public library for the use of the school will be established by
subscription, at Mr. Williams’s. We are very glad of it, not for our own
sake, for before it shall rise to any degree of importance we shall be
inhabitants of this spot no longer; our very names will be forgotten
among its more recent inmates. But we hail with joy this institution,
for the sake of the school we love and reverence, to which we hope it
will prove, at some future period, a valuable addition.
The plan admits of one hundred subscribers--viz., the one hundred senior
members of the school. If any of these decline to become members, the
option will descend to the next in gradation. The subscription for the
first year will be 10_s._ 6_d._ after the Easter, Election, and
Christmas holidays; in future 10_s._ 6_d._ will be paid after the two
latter vacations only. The library will consist of the classics,
history, &c.; and subscribers will be allowed, under certain
regulations, to take books from the room. Of course a thing of this kind
has not been set on foot without the concurrence of the higher powers;
and the head-master has assisted the promoters of it by his approbation,
as well as by liberality of another description. We trust that Eton will
not long continue to experience the want of an advantage which many
other public schools enjoy.
We had intended to send the foregoing loose remarks to press, in order
to request as many of our schoolfellows in the upper division as are
willing to become subscribers to leave their names with Mr. Williams, at
whose house the library will be established. But as we were preparing to
send off the manuscript, an old gentleman, for whom we have a great
respect, called in, and looked over our shoulder. He then took a chair,
and observed to us: “This will never do!” He took off his spectacles,
wiped them, put them on again, and repeated: “This will never do!
“I, sir, was an Etonian in the year 17--, and, being a bit of a
speculator in those days, had a mind to do what you are now dreaming of
doing. I addressed myself forthwith to various friends, all of them
distinguished for rank, or talent, or influence, among their companions.
I began with Sir Roger Gandy, expatiated on the sad want of books which
many experienced, and asked whether he did not think a public library
would be a very fine thing? ‘A circulating one,’ he said; ‘oh yes,
very!’--and he yawned. There was taste!
“The next to whom I made application was Tom Luny, the fat son of a fat
merchant on Ludgate Hill. Poor Tom! He died last week, by-the-by, of a
surfeit. Well, sir, I harangued him for some time upon the advantages of
my scheme, to which he gave his cordial assent. Finally I observed that,
of course, it would not be very expensive. ‘Expensive!’ he said; ‘oh
yes, very!’--and he walked off. There was liberality!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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