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book and a pipe if they chose. The £250 expended in laying- out the garden and building the
readers' shed was obtained by the efforts of Mr. Orsman from the central governing body of the
City Parochial Foundation. The Commissioners had also purchased a valuable museum
collection, and they believed that the new library would prove a great success and a veritable
boon to the inhabitants of Shorediteh. (Applause.)
The Duke of Devonshire, who was greeted with cheers, said, although the work in which
" he had been engaged that day (the opening of the Imperial Institute) had no special reference to
the Metropolis, it was one that might be found to be of great advantage to the inhabitants of the
Metropolis, inasmuch as it was hoped that it would lead to a better acquaintance on the part of
its inhabitants with the great resources of the vast Colonial and Imperial dependencies of this
Empire. (Cheers.) In saying a few words in opening the library, he desired to express his
sincere congratulations on having taken part in the great movement for the extension of public
libraries. (Cheers.) The passing of the Public Libraries Act was not followed by any remarkable
activity in the Metropolis for a considerable period ; but of late years he was glad to learn that
a very remarkable extension of activity had taken place. (Cheers.) He believed that up to
September, 1891, the Act had been adopted in 28 Metropolitan parishes. That was a fact which
he looked to with the greatest possible satisfaction, although he was quite aware that the
principle of that Act was not universally approved. There was a school of persons—he was not
sure whether they called themselves social reformers or not—who had devoted a great deal of
thought and consideration to social questions, with many of the principles of which he admitted
that he had great sympathy, inasmuch as their object was to advocate the principle of self-help
as opposed to the principle of State-help. With many of their principles he had the fullest
sympathy, but when they carried their opposition to State-help or Municipal-help in social movements
so far as to oppose the adoption of the Free Libraries Act they were carrying their
principles much too far. (Hear, hear.) He endeavoured to look at this question from a practical
point of view. He asked himself whether public libraries were good or bad institutions for the
people. He asked whether it was probable that by any other means than that provided by the
Act adequate provisions of these public libraries would, within any reasonable time, be effected ;
and his answer was that public libraries were not only good things, but almost essential to the
welfare of the people if no other means could be provided within a reasonably short time. We
should not be content, he thought, that this generation should wait for this benefit in order that
two or three generations hence might possibly be provided with these institutions upon a better
principle, and that those future generations might possibly be better trained than the present
one in the habit of self-help and self-reliance. (Cheers.) He congratulated the district of
Shorediteh in the acquisition of this Institution, and he also sincerely congratulated their
founder, Mr. Passmore Edwards—(applause)—on the personal service which he had been able to
render to a large number of his fellow citizens—a number which it was difficult to estimate at
the present moment, and still more difficult to estimate if they attempted to look into the future.
He congratulated him also on the continued pleasure which it had been in his power to bestow
upon great numbers of his fellow citizens and countrymen. (Cheers.) They had lately seen a
great development of the spirit of private munificence, and there was an increasing sympathy
between man and man, between class and class, and an increasing recognition of those ties which
bound together those whose lot was cast in the same communities and localities. (Cheers.)
Anyone who undertook the duty which he had was expected to say something as to the advantages
and benefits which a free library could confer upon the people, and this part of his duty he
did not feel very well qualified to perform, because he neither had, nor professed to have, a very
intimate acquaintance with books, which ought to be the subject of his observations. The only
excuse he could make was that during the past few years he had endeavoured to give some
attention to the great question of technical education, and in the course of what he had been
able to do in that direction he had been led to give some little consideration to the objects and
results of the efforts which we were now making in the direction of popular education. We
were spending a great dei1. of money on popular luration, derived from public and local
u